Dr. Winnie Kiiru – Kenyan-Born Wildlife Biologist
Dr. Winnie Kiiru is a Kenyan-born wildlife biologist with a distinguished career in research, policy, advocacy, and wildlife management. She has recently received the State Honour “Order of the Grand Warrior” in recognition of her leadership in conservation.
She was also appointed Chairperson the inaugural Board of Wildlife Research and Training Institute, a newly formed government organization charged with leading wildlife research and training in Kenya. Winnie’s immense contribution in wildlife conservation in high leadership roles prepared her well for this immense responsibility.
Winnie served as a Trustee of the Kenya Wildlife Service and chaired the conservation committee of the board. She was instrumental in influencing KWS to conduct a national inventory of the ivory and rhino horn stockpile.
Dr. Kiiru led the project team that successfully conducted an historic Ivory and Rhino Horn inventory and subsequent ivory burn officiated by His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta on 30th April 2016. She was named Woman of Excellence, 2016 by the Kenya Association of Women in Tourism for successfully leading the ivory project and positively impacting Kenya’s global image
Dr. Kiiru has made her mark in international advocacy for elephants. She is a well-known voice at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and has represented Kenya and the NGO fraternity since 2000. She is a founder member of the African Elephant Coalition an important group of like-minded African countries that came together to support the precautionary principle at a time when the push to open the ivory trade was strong. African voices from East Africa that stood against the trade were drowned by the pro-trade lobby from the south until the coalition built the required capacity for West and Central Africa to speak. Through the work of the coalition, elephants have remained in the appendix 1 of CITES despite many proposals to downlist and promote trade in ivory.
Winnie currently is the Head of Government Relations at the Elephant Protection Initiative. The EPI is a governmental initiative with 21 African member states committed to promoting elephant conservation and the livelihoods of the African people. The EPI is well known for bringing the conservation dialogue to the highest levels of government. Dr. Kiiru is in her element when working with Heads of State of government, Ministers of the Environment and Heads of Global organizations that determine the policy and funding direction at the highest level.
Dr. Kiiru is chairperson of the leadership council of WE Africa an organization created to remedy the diversity imbalance by empowering women leaders in African conservation to transform their own and others’ leadership. The organization has so far recruited 40 women leaders from across the continent and enrolled them in a 12-month fellowship program to prepare them to take up the challenge of leading conservation on the continent. The First Lady of Kenya is a great supporter of WE Africa and she follows the progress of the women closely.
Dr. Kiiru’s influence is equally felt in Kenya through her active grassroot organization and her role in the leadership of other conservation organizations like Amboseli Trust for Elephants and Friends of Karura.
Dr. Kiiru is the founder of CHD Conservation Kenya, a grassroot organization that promotes community education and awareness among the pastoralist communities around Amboseli National Park. CHD Conservation Kenya hosts conservation camps attended by girls and women from the Maasai community. These two groups are particularly disadvantaged in the community and yet they have the greatest impact on the rangelands. They collect fuel, food, water, fodder, medicines and building materials daily with little knowledge of the conservation needs of the environment that they depend on. Conservation Kenya and Dr. Kiiru have become a household name in Amboseli with deep connections in the community.
Dr. Winifred Kiiru is a trustee of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. This is the longest study of wild elephants in the world. Since 1972 the Amboseli research project has accumulated groundbreaking data on the social biology of wild elephants and provided the basis for many important decisions on elephant conservation globally.
Winnie has been the Chairperson of Friends of Karura Forest for the last 5 years. Friends of Karura Forest is a model Community Forest Association in Kenya. The forest is visited by an estimated 50,000 people every month with 80% being Kenyan citizens. The adjacent forest community receives 30,000USD in bursaries every year to support education of the youth and children and over 50,000 USD is spent every month on staff salaries with most employees recruited from the forest adjacent community. The forest restoration program in Karura is extremely successful with over 100,000 indigenous trees planted in the last 10 years.
The indefatigable Dr. Winnie Kiiru still finds time to lecture at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and she is highly regarded a mentor and inspiring presence for the young graduates.
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